Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life] [DEMO OUT!]

NaNoRenO is an event where creators make a game from scratch during the month of March.
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arcadeparty
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Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life] [DEMO OUT!]

#1 Post by arcadeparty »

Image
(Art by Robin Yao; logo by Johan Faulstich!)



Ever wanted to play a dating sim starring morticians-in-training? No? Just me? Cool, because I'm making one for my own sake! :wink:

PLOT/INFO
Nineteen year old Prince is terrible at figuring out how he feels, and even worse at showing it. Without the ability to let his emotions show on his face, he's always had a hard time getting to know people — even in the mortuary program at a welcoming technical college, Prince only spends time with his roommate Daniel while nursing a distant crush on his classmate Aodh. When their professor assigns the trio to do a temporary internship together at a local funeral home in the two weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, will Prince finally have the chance to confess his feelings? (Or will life — and death — keep getting in the way?)

CHARACTERS
Prince — You! (Well, sorta you.) He's accepted that people avoid him for his "scary, angry/unreadable face", but wishes he had more friends. Used to think morticians were actually magic.
Aodh — Prince's crush. (Romance route.) Physically weak, his personality is so direct that if you give him an inch he'll go for a mile. Thinks Arthur Conan Doyle's John Watson is the perfect guy.
Daniel — Prince's roommate. (Romance route.) Next in line to inherit his family's funeral home, he really doesn't want to do it and is sick of death. Materialistic and likes being paid attention to.
Kitty — College professor. (M/W/Fri events.) Her life goal is to have her mortuary science students think she's cool and smart, but she keeps getting foiled by YouTube autoplay or tripping in class.
Nana — Funeral home owner. (Tu/Th/Sat events.) Not afraid to do things other people would find gross, she believes in respect for all dead things. Isabelle's grandmother; worries about her.
Isabelle — Funeral director. (Tu/Th/Sat events.) The face of Nana's business, she's bad with details, but good at her job and extremely empathetic; sometimes too empathetic.

OVERVIEW
I had the urge to make something with characters in the death industry after playing through A Mortician's Tale and looking more into the death positive movement that inspired it, especially while reading autobiographies by a lot of morticians with a lot of different perspectives on death, so I figured I'd use NaNoRenO to try my super-self indulgent idea out! I'll hopefully remember to update this thread with WIPs as the next couple weeks go by. I'm not great at making these threads haha ;;;...

Good luck NaNo'ing, everybody!
Last edited by arcadeparty on Tue Apr 03, 2018 8:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

LIZM
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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#2 Post by LIZM »

Joke's on you, I've always wanted a dating sim like that. The setting is right up my alley and the art looks great! I'll be rooting for you to finish this, I'd love to get a chance to play it.

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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#3 Post by Avior »

We can always use more morticians (and more death positivity!!) in games so I'm super looking forward to this! The art looks really nice too! :D
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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#4 Post by azaraih »

Sounds really cool! The characters seem interesting, I like characters who seem scary but are actually nice/want to be friends, so that's fun for a protagonist. Good luck, I'm interested to see what you do with it!
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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#5 Post by arcadeparty »

Image
(Logo by Johan!)

For my first tiny little devlog update, I've been spending the first few days of the month working on a lot of the code's structure. Here's a look at the main menu! There's not much else to show on my end yet, three days into the month, but the script is coming along at a few thousand words a day and I'm feeling good about it.

And thanks for all your sweet comments and encouragement! It made my day to wake up this morning and read them. ❤

@LIZM:
Oh, good, that makes two of us! I'm definitely going to do my best to finish it by the end of March. Fingers crossed I can!

@Avior:
Yeah, I definitely agree! It's such a crucial job (and just as important of a movement) but the research I did really taught me a lot of stuff I hadn't known a single thing about before.

@azaraih:
Those characters are definitely one of my favorite types, too! Writing Prince's POV has been really enjoyable, which is great, haha.

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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#6 Post by Zelan »

Title screen looks awesome! And this is a really cool concept. Looking forward to seeing this. ^_^

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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#7 Post by nangke »

I'm really interested in this. Looking forward to playing it!

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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#8 Post by 78909087 »

The art is beautiful, the concept is a little present with a bow. I love that it's such a broad and meaningful topic but that you can breech it in a smaller amount of time. I'm looking forward to your results. :)
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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#9 Post by arcadeparty »

@Zelan:
Thanks! I think Johan did awesome work with the logo; it looks great, compliments the art, and gives the whole thing a real sense of atmosphere.

@nangke:
I hope you enjoy it and that I finish it in time, haha!

@78909087:
Definitely right there with you on the art -- Robin's work always blows me away and I'm super happy to be working with them! And I'm hoping I do justice to the concept of balancing personal life with professional death, too, because it's definitely super broad and personalized at the same time.

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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#10 Post by arcadeparty »

Image

Been a little while since I updated this thread, so here's a look at the excellent and spooky user interface DCS just finished with two of Robin's character sketch mockups! You get to make crucially important choices over the course of the story, like choosing to feed Daniel's ego or not! Really high-stakes stuff.

Everything is still way under construction internally, but things are chugging along at a pretty good pace and I'm confident that (fingers crossed!) we'll at least be able to get a something out before NaNoRenO ends. But I'm still having a blast, which is definitely worth reporting in a devlog -- "NaNoRenO fun!" is my official position even though I'm working on it on my birthday, haha.

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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#11 Post by Boniae »

I'm so excited for this project, love the concept (unique topics and premises always stick out to me in a very good way!), the art, and the GUI looks wicked awesome. Glad to hear your having a blast with the development! (and also happy belated Bday!) Good luck, looking forward to the game! :D

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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#12 Post by Zelan »

Happy late birthday, arcadeparty!! And yes, that's an extremely important choice. I don't know how I'll ever make a decision in the final game.

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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#13 Post by nerupuff »

It's looking great! I'm excited for this project. The art is cute and fits the theme, and it sounds like a great original idea, too!
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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life]

#14 Post by arcadeparty »

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Updating this thread to let everyone here know that there's a brief demo on Itchio! (There has been for a day or two, but I wanted to be extra sure there weren't any bugs. :oops: ) I'm looking at releasing the rest of it in the next couple weeks, so hopefully this character introduction is still interesting enough on its own for now.


And oops -- didn't realize there were other posts in this thread I hadn't responded to! Super sorry, y'all!

@Boniae:
Thanks! I'm extending all that enthusiasm into my spillover work; I'm still having fun, even with more than a month's work into the pipeline and a release date later than I'd thought it would be, which is a relief.

@Zelan:
Nearly a month later, but thanks, haha! (And I know, right? Just how do ever pick from a set of choices like that?)

@nerupuff:
Thank you! You'll probably see me mention this on the Itchio page or up above, but LAF is actually heavily inspired by the impact a different game and said game's own inspiration had on me, so I've been surprised to hear people call it original -- but I'm definitely not complaining to hear that it stands up on its own, haha!

(Thank you all for your comments last month, by the way; I'll probably hold off on posting here until it's to link to a new post in the Completed Games section, but I really appreciated reading your feedback and I'll definitely keep a better eye out if anyone else wants to comment!)

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Re: Love and Formaldehyde [BxB] [NaNo 2018] [Slice of Life] [DEMO OUT!]

#15 Post by Godline »

Nice work so far!

I hope you get to finish it up some time.

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